Archive | Online Tools RSS feed for this section

Web Site Monitoring with Site24x7.com

Sep/12 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

With both paid and free versions, Site24x7.com looks to be a great web site monitoring package.  They do monitoring of uptime and performance of your web sites, online services and servers.  They also promise to deliver instant alerts the moment something goes wrong.

You can set the monitoring tools to check the web site in question you wish to monitor in intervals ranging from 5 to 60 minutes or above.

If the worst might happen, and you need to be told, here are the various ways they can alert you to trouble:

  • E-mail
  • RSS
  • SMS Messages

For those of you just wanting to beta test the service; when you first sign up, you are given a fully functional, 15-day trial account. At the end of 15 days, your account will be downgraded to free unless you upgrade to either Standard or Premium account.

Check out the screenshots, then give them a shot at Site24x7.com.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

4 More Ways to Search Rapidshare, Megaupload and More!

Sep/09 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

After the popularity of the first time I talk about some of the search engines for the most popular file hosting solutions out there (such as Rapidshare and Megaupload), we got a demand for people wanting more.  As a man who like to deliver to people what they want, here are five more ways to search these free file hosting solutions.

filefieldnet

FileField.net gives you a ton of tags to start out with, and a pretty simple interface to go by.  There is a search box of course, and the results were pretty easy to figure out.  They say they search rapidshare.com, megaupload.com, sendspace.com, yourfilehost.com, badongo.net, mediafire.com, zshare.net, 4shared.com, depositfiles.co, and milefactory.com.

oplahol

OplaHol.com gets at least the award for the funniest name.  The standard search box interface is there.  What is nice about this one is it also gives you social bookmarking links and video thumbnail previews on the right side.

filecrop

FileCrop.com offers searching for both Megaupload and Rapidshare.  It works a little differently than most.  It spiders pages, looking for links to free file uploads and then adds them to it’s database.

logo

RapidshareData.com is our last one for today.  From the top of the page it lets you choose what type of file you are looking for (audio, video, docs, pictures and more) and then the regular ol’ search box.  Quick and easy to use, but nothing much to separate it from the competition.

Word of warning, some of these links may contain links to adult material.  So as always, be careful what you click and with anything you find Online where you can’t verify the source, be sure to scan the files with your anti-virus to make sure there is nothing bad inside.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Import POP3 Accounts into Gmail

Aug/28 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

For those of you who have your own POP3 e-mail account that came with your web hosting for your web site – would you like to import that mail into Gmail?  Using Gmail’s Mail Fetcher, you can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralizing all your e-mail in Gmail.

First thing you must do is login to the Gmail web site, and then Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Accounts tab.

gmail1

Now on the Account web page, scroll down to the Get mail from other accounts section, click Add another mail account. Now Gmail will walk you though a wizard (like with any other e-mail client) to gather information about your e-mail account.

gmail2

Now personally, I would make sure you check not to keep your messages on the server.  This way all your messages are sent to Gmail and stored there, and you don’t have to worry about cleaning out your server side mail from time to time.

Once you have finished with the wizard, hit click Add Account.  Now you can use your e-mail from your web hosting account with Gmail.  If you are a fan of Gmail, this will keep you from having to jump from client to client to get your e-mail all checked.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

LinkedIn Group Connects Hosting World

Aug/13 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

1218376496 Connecting the massive amounts of people, from the server grunts to the high dollar CEOs of the hosting industry isn’t such a bad goal.  Sure, it might be a big one but that is what the Hosting Industry Organization is looking to do.

Based around what started as a group on LinkedIn.com, this project has flourished into an organization to connect people in the web hosting world.  Around the end of July, the Hosting Industry Organization setup a member directory, classifieds, a job posting board, and a hosting companies for sales section.  They are also looking for suggestions, just in case you have any other big ideas to pass to them.

Just looking over the directory section of the web page, they have listings for:

  • Brokers/M&A for the Hosting Industry
  • Datacenters and Rack Space
  • Marketing Services
  • Job Resources
  • Server Hardware Providers
  • and more!

Right now membership stands at over 2,000+ with, I’m sure, more members joining every day.  Want to sign up?  Use this special link to do so now.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Joyent’s Connector for Online Collaboration

Aug/01 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

I have always had a soft spot in my hosting heart for Joyent’s services because they are not afraid to try something outside of the box.  One good example of this would be the Connector service they provide.

It is a collaboration suit the provides cool features such as searching, tagging and RSS feeds they they say will make your life easier.

bookmarksOthers

The purpose and point here is to have a one place stop for a team of people to meet together and post their work and ideas Online in the same spot.  Here is a little more about the product from Joyent’s web site:

The Connect app ties everything together. It’s a place where items from any of the other parts of the system — mail messages, contacts, events, files — can be collected into related groups. Smart groups in the Connect app pull in items from any of the other apps on the system, from any users, allowing you to easily manage the items related to a project.

They do provide a free service if you want to just try things out, and then they go up from there in features.  The set of tools they provide is well worth checking out for any team of people who want to collaborate online.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Live Chat Providers for Web Hosts

Jul/31 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

Best Live Chat Providers Live chat, in one way, shape or form seems to be a perk that many web hosting customers are looking for.  If you are a web host though, how do you know which live chat tools are the best?  Here are some of my favorite live chat providers out there that seem to get a lot of love from the web hosting community.

Kayako Live Response – When it comes to live chat support, Kayako is one of the best.  Not only do they provide the web interface for it, they also have a desktop client to interact with the service too.  Other nice features include desktop sharing, quick responses and a VoIP softphone add-on.

ProvideSupport.com – This tool is one of the cheaper ones out there, but don’t let that fool you.  They too provide some visually appealing tools as well as chat transcripts, multiple chat support, and easy integration into any web hosting site.

LiveZilla – For those web hosts out there on a budget, I do have one free live chat support option for you.  LiveZilla might have a few less frills than the paid for applications, but still deserve consideration.  The fact that it is free gives it a big green check mark in the “good things about it” column too.

What live chat solutions do you use?

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Is My Web Site Up or Down?

Jul/25 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

is-my-site-down

Previously I told you about an awesome web site status tool that could help you tell if your web site was up or not.  Down for everyone or just me looks to have become a real success.  I have one better though, thanks to a suggestion from a Web Hosting Show listener named John.

I’ve been using DFEOJM a long time, and have found it to be a great tool.  You’re right that the URL is a tad long. I came across this web site:

http://www.checksite.us

It’s almost identical, except it’s a shorter URL, easier to remember. It doesn’t have the instant site checking, but at least the URL is shorter.

All you have to do is type in the domain you want to check into the text box on the site, and hit the “Enter” key on your keyboard.  Then the web site tells you if the web site is up or down for them.  A very nice alternative to use if you want to check to see if others can see your web site.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Whats My IP Address?

Jun/20 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

From time to time it is handy to know what your IP address is.  Now it is no secret that there are a hundred and one different ways of getting this done.  From looking in your PC, to putting a widget on your desktop to even visiting a web site.

WhatsMyIP.us is the newest of those Online resources that will let you know what your IP address is.  The difference here is that they do so without any annoying interface or loopholes to jump through.  You just have your IP address there and you are done. If you’d like to share this functionality with others, it is easy to do with their embeddable JavaScript code.  Just copy and paste it to give your own visitors their IP address back at them.

Now back on the notion of why this is handy to have?  Well with some remote workers out there in the hosting arena, you may need to pass your IP address along to your boss to gain access to their technical support center.  For others, it might help you troubleshoot a home networking issue.  Your IP address is what could be likened to your “home address” on the Internet.

So add WhatsMyIP.us to your own hosting tools bookmark folder.  You might not need it today or tomorrow, but when you do need it you’ll be happy you saved it to the side.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Site Popularity Checking with URLmetrix

Jun/18 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

URLmetrix.com brings in a quick and useful way to check your web site’s Online popularity via a slew of resources.  Wondering what your Google PageRank is?  How about your Google or Yahoo backlinks?  Check them all out on this one single web site.  Definitely a resource to bookmark.

Here are all the services they cover:  Your web page title, Google PageRank, Alexa rank, Compete rank, Quantcast rank, Technorati rank, Google Indexed, Yahoo Indexed, Google Backlinks, Yahoo Backlinks and Delicious Links.

For each thing it scores it will also give you a link to go get more information.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Quick Domain Searching with Domize

May/20 in All Posts, Online Tools, Web Hosting Tutorials

domize

Ready for the Online tool that promises to provide you with the quickest domain name searching ever?  Domize.com is promoting themselves as the “better” instant domain search tool.  Do they live up to that hype?  Yes, they do!

There is no rocket science needed to use it either, which as you all know if something I like to see.  Just type in the domain name you have in mind and they will let you know if there is a .com, .org or .net version of that domain available to use.  Red means it is in use and blue means it is available.  If you hover your mouse over the red links, they will give you a thumbnail picture of that registered site too.  Find one you like?  Click on a blue link and you will be taken to GoDaddy.com to purchase.

All Domize traffic is secured over SSL, making sure your queries stay private and away from snooping eyes.

Another neat feature of this web site is you can search via your iPhone too.  Now why your searching for domains on your phone?  That is another problem I can even begin to get into here.  Nice to know though that if you get that big idea for the next great domain name you can check on it even if there isn’t a PC in sight.

So go visit Domize.com for more and let them know them know the Web Hosting Show sent you there.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }
← Older posts Newer posts →